The Russian-language Internet publication Istories has been operating since the spring of last year.

It was founded by several journalists who were involved in the investigation of a large-scale leak of confidential documents known as the Panama Papers.

Among them are the former special correspondent of The Village Olesya Shmagun and the former special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta Roman Anin.

  • Roman Anin

  • © Frame: YouTube video

Latvian founder

The founders of the media Shmagun and Anin do not hide the fact of registration in Latvia.

“We… are registered as a non-profit organization in Latvia,” Anin explained in a recent address to readers.

- We did it, firstly, for security reasons;

secondly, in order to be independent ”.

The editorial office is managed from Latvia by the local NGO Istories Fonds.

This is confirmed by both the text of the donation agreement and the statutory documents of the legal entity. 

  • Olesya Shmagun

  • Facebook

  • © @ olesya.shmagun

The main goals of the Latvian foundation are “to provide the international community with high-quality investigative publications and to develop high-quality journalism”.

This is spelled out in the constituent documents of the organization, which RT got acquainted with.

In 2020, the accounts of Istories Fonds received € 10,465 as donations and other income. This follows from a copy of the organization's annual report, which was at the disposal of RT.

It is clear from the report that € 3,465 came in the form of “anonymous donations”.

Probably, these are funds received through the donation form on the site.  

The publication received another € 7,000 as "other income".

All expenses - € 10,292 - are shown under the column “other expenses”.

In 2020, there were no officially employed employees in the organization. 

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The report does not indicate who exactly was the sender of the € 7,000 posted as “other income”.

The founder of the Public Committee for the Detection of Foreign Interference, Alexander Ionov, is confident that he knows the donor. 

"These funds were donated to the Istories Foundation by the Stockholm School of Economics," Ionov said in an interview with RT. 

He explained that he had made such conclusions after reviewing certain documents, which, however, he could not provide at the request of the editorial board.

On the fact of the alleged connection with the Stockholm school, on July 22, 2021, Ionov appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office and relevant departments with a request to recognize the publication "Important Stories" as a foreign agent.

As RT found out, there really is a connection between the Stockholm School and Istories, at least through the leaders and the address. 

Thus, Istories Fonds was registered in Riga at 4A Strelnieku Street.

The Stockholm School of Economics is located at the same address.

Roman Anin previously collaborated with this school: he gave lectures, taught courses. 

Finally, the vice-president of the Stockholm School of Economics, Anders Aleksanderson, personally makes management decisions in relation to the Russian-language media: he sits on the board of Istories fonds.  

Foreign Agent Candidate

If foreign participation in Important Stories is proved, the editorial office may be recognized as a foreign media agent, says Denis Nikitin, a lawyer at the Human Rights Center.

"All the signs of a foreign organization-foreign agent, according to the sixth article of the law" On the media, "such an organization is present," - said the lawyer. 

Recall that the labeling of a media foreign agent appeared in Russia in 2017 after the amendments were made to the law "On Information". 

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According to the provisions of the law, foreign media are considered to be legal entities registered abroad, or foreign structures without forming a legal entity, distributing printed, audiovisual and other materials and financed from foreign sources.

"Important stories" in the form of the Latvian legal entity Istories Fonds fall under the concept of a "legal entity registered abroad" that publishes its materials in Russia.

However, Roman Anin himself is not afraid of the potential “foreign agent” status. 

“Are we and I personally afraid of being a“ foreign agent ”?

No, ”he wrote in the editorial column in response to an application submitted by Ionov to the Prosecutor General's Office. 

Stanford pattern

The Latvian legal entity is not the only foreign asset of Anina and Shmagun.

In 2019, they established the Fellowship for Investigative and Creative Journalism in California. 

Previously, Anin studied in the United States: in 2019 he studied at Stanford under the Journalism Fellowships program. 

With regard to Russian journalists who have passed Stanford and received a scholarship to them.

Knight, the following pattern is built.

During their studies or shortly after completion, many of them start their own media, while receiving funding from foreign sources. 

The pioneer was the former editor-in-chief of the Russian Forbes Elizaveta Osetinskaya, who opened her edition of The Bell in 2017.

By dates, this coincided with her studies at Stanford, and the University of California at Berkeley gave her the first $ 100 thousand for development, RT wrote.

In parallel, Osetinskaya opened a legal entity in the United States. 

  • Elizaveta Osetinskaya

  • Instagram

  • © @osetinskayaliza

In 2018, the future founder of Proekt *, Roman Badanin, entered Stanford.

Having received an award to them.

John Knight, in the same year he opened Project Media INC in Delaware.

Subsequently, RT found out that Badanin received $ 280 thousand for the launch and the first year of operation of his media from the American (NED) ** and European (EED) *** Fund for Democracy Support. 

This scenario was almost completely repeated by Roman Anin.

Having entered the Stanford program in 2019, in July of the same year he established the Investigative and Creative Journalism Association in California.

Olesya Shmagun became the co-founder.

And at the beginning of 2020, his media project "Important Stories" appeared. 

RT sent a request to the Stockholm School of Economics to clarify whether the organization actually funded Important Stories through Istories Fonds.

At the time of publication of the article, the organization did not respond.

* "Project Media" (Project Media, Inc.) is an organization whose activities are recognized as undesirable in the territory of the Russian Federation by the decision of the General Prosecutor's Office dated 07.15.2021.

** The National Endowment for Democracy is an organization whose activities have been declared undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation by the decision of the Prosecutor General's Office of July 28, 2015.

*** The European Endowment for Democracy (EED) is an organization whose activities have been declared undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation by the decision of the General Prosecutor's Office.